Anti-smoking advocates hit Herbosa for accepting mobile laboratory clinics
Anti-smoking advocates have criticized Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa’s apparent cordial relations with tobacco executives.
Dr. Ulysses Dorotheo, executive director of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA), denounced Herbosa for publicly joining a donation turnover ceremony with tobacco company executives.
“Worse than the hypocrisy of the tobacco industry (donating mobile clinics while causing deaths and diseases) is the lack of integrity of the Secretary of Health attending this event and posing happily for a group photo, trading public health principles and ethics for political convenience,” Dorotheo said in a Facebook post on Sunday.
Dorotheo was reacting to a photo during the turnover of four mobile laboratory clinics donated by Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp. Inc. (PMFTC) and the Lucio Tan Group Inc. (LTG) to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Malacañang on March 20. PMFTC is a subsidiary of the LT Group with a 50-50 percent stake, along with Philip Morris International (PMI).
The photo was published in the Inquirer Business section on March 22.
According to Dorotheo, Herbosa’s presence at the event allegedly violated Section 3 of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and Department of Health (DOH) Joint Memorandum Circular (JMC) No. 2010-001, which explicitly mandated government officials to avoid unnecessary interactions with and prohibiting accepting donations from the tobacco industry.
The prohibition is said to be in consonance with the country’s attempt at complying with its international commitments under the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC), to which the Philippines is a signatory.
The DOH did not respond for comment.
